Ætheling

I think that's when we either get to post-modern or revisionist.

The days when people found counterfeiting were hung and people producing underweight coins were castrated and otherwise mutilated by having their right hand removed without anæsthetic... ah those were the good old days when money was serious business and it was generally all about protecting the intrinsic standard of the currency. Not about maximising mint profits... oh how far we have degraded ourselves.

Which in turn means it's also illegal to sell the old coin people notes as collectors items to the members on the forum in say 10 years time. What would happen if say a member got hold of one and sent it to a friend who then decided to sell it on ebay as a novelty piece?

Coins that are totally intoxicated by alcoholic beverages are always good... Gothics are good!

Wow a store that takes them! The Post Office would not even take my £5 coin back, unless i was using it as part of a purchase. Even then they took some convincing, funny that cos they sold me the thing in the first place.

I got a whole pile of the damn things here. I have more Washington Quarters than any other US coin going. Never did agree on US coin designs did we Stu? I rate Washers and $20 Libs as the best US coins ever and you rate the Incuse Indians and worse still the Buffs...

I can field that one. The mint wanted to produce commemoratives, but as you can imagine producing massive 25p coins and issuing them at banks for 25p was not entirely profit friendly. Thus the mint axed the old 25p crowns (which were proper crowns and they are Kuhli). In their place they introduced a totally new coin, same alloy, same size, this was the new decimal £5 coin. Bearing in mind they had issued gold pre-decimal £5 coins in the past which were nearly the same size. (Actually pre-decimal pounds and decimal pounds are exactly the same, no change in value). What confused things were the mint marketed these new £5 coins as 'crown sized coins', and thus people just started calling them crowns for short, because people are generally lazy. That's why it gets so confusing. Imagine being a UK shop keeper that is being harrased by a customer who slaps a 1977 25p coin down and demands it's a £5 coin... (it does happen, albeit rarely). The shop keepers refuse to take them, the bank refuse to take either the 25p or the £5 coins and thus many of the 25p coins get skimmed across the street by the angry person that couldn't get shut of it at the local petrol station. I know cos the petrol station employee went outside and picked it up.

I dunno i'm getting towards specialist step by step, i'm down to five collections at the moment, all of which require between 8-14 coins for a full set in each. So i'm getting there... slowly but surely.

Am i not wrong in thinking spent batteries could spring a leak in time? Then how good would your coin be?

I'm a reforming generalist turning specialist... (And failing).

At 41mm and 2 ounces in weight (that's regular ounces) A very big and very heavy coin, imagine 120 of them jangling, alright thudding in your pocket. You can see why they didn't take off in a big way. 1797 only year of issue.

If it's the same size as a Churchill crown (or any other British crown be it 1951, 1953 or whatever) and it says 25p on it no where, then yes it's very likely it's a 25p coin. As you can well imagine they don't circulate. Infact most Brits don't even know they have a 25p coin. Why is it that big you ask? Because 1 shilling is 5 new pence, and thus 5 shillings is 25 new pence. The denomination altered to decimal, the size like the 10p (florin) and 5p (shilling) coins remained unchanged. Another little British peculiarity that makes no sense to anyone with common sense, but what did you expect?

Still in it's holder for you crystaltalk... I'll be shipping this copper twopence off to you on monday. You know in 15 years of collecting i've never actually owned one of these. I guess i finally do own one now, albeit briefly, thursday-monday. Four days! I hope you like it... (okay i should have shrunk these!) (I even like the chocolate tone, but i have a soft spot for George III copper cos my first coin was a George III penny).

Me neither. You know i thought i merely didn't care for the design but when i met one of those incuse Indians in person i was even more underwhelmed. They are a monstrous design. If they had been struck in relief i probably would feel alot happier about the design overall.

You know feel free to modify the definitions a little, no need to stick rigidly to them. Even add 'other' if you like.

I'll enter these on here Art rather than as arranged earlier. Edward the Elder (899-924) Silver 'Two Line' Type Penny Obv; EADWEARD REX Rev; BONVS HOMOMO (Good Man) [who was the moneyer] Omnicoin link; Edward the Elder Henry II (1154-1189) Silver Short Cross Penny, minted 1180-1189 Obv; HENRICVS REX Rev; GOLCELM ON WINC (Gocelm of Winchester) Omnicoin link; Henry II Cnut (1016-1035) Silver Short Cross Penny Obv; CNUT REX Rev; BRUNSTAN ÐEOD (Brunstan of Thetford) Omnicoin link; Canute Æthelstan (924-939) Silver 'Two Line' Type Penny. Obv; ÆÐELSTAN REX Rev; ASULF NEN (Asulf) [the moneyer of this issue] Omnicoin link; Æthelstan

Truly wonderful coins!

Which of the following most closely resembles your collecting style; Generalist You take a pretty general approach to collecting because you strive for diversity; different looks, different grades, different sizes, different shapes, different countries, different metals and anything that is differently different in a very different way. Your knowledge is limited depthwise but is very broad and across the numismatic playing field. Specialist You find yourself drawn to one series particularly more than anything else and you're quite happy to consider nothing beyond your narrow little focused area/s. You love nothing more than studying the many varieties available of say just one date of coin, you even know where all the stops should be and how far apart they should be to one hundredth of an inch. Your knowledge is somewhat limited numismatically on the broader playing field but when it comes to your specialised area you know it like the back of you hand. Hoarder If it's a coin, it's in.

The Dollar, and how!

Incuse coins are just wrong.

$20 liberty being my favourite US coin design of all time, much better than that St. Gaudens rubbish that replaced it. Thus you know where my vote went.

That's another school of though i like. Do you include Benjamin Franklin in modern or not? Personally i would.

Bang there's another different date. Beginning of William IV (1831 issue) or end of (1837 issue)? Liz II must be post-modern. My own personal preference is following; US coins - 1934 (first year without gold) Although i accept the case for 1950. UK coins - 1816 (for milled), 1500 (for hammered). France - End of Louis XVI in 1792. Germany - debatable but i'd say 1948.

Alot of collectors that say 1950. Which is not too unrealistic considering that archaeologists and people in forensic sciences, particularly the field of radio carbon dating consider 1950 as 'Modern', hence why objects when radio carbon dated are dated going back with 1950 as the baseline. Not unfeesible to say that 1950 is therefore the beginning of all that is modern. Although some US collectors might say 1964 is when coinage turned modern. Some have argued 1933 (the year the US went off of the gold standard as the first shift towards a modern currency, modern meaning a fiat currency). German collectors might argue modern as being 1948. The date invariably differs from place to place and from denomination to denomination.* I did say on a different forum that modern could arguably be the year 1500, since this is the year that most historians in Europe consider to be the change from medieval Europe to Early Modern Europe, Early maybe but modern none the less. *The denomination argument. Take British coins for this example; Copper collectors will argue that modern coinage begins in either 1797 (steam presses) or 1860 (the switch to bronze). Bronze collectors might argue for 1900 (more properly 1901 as this is the first year of the 20th century), 1902 (Edward VII starts) or 1936 (End of George V). Silver collectors might argue 1901, 1902, 1920 (silver reduced from .925 to .500) or 1946 (base metals) Gold Collectors might argue 1901, 1917 (end of London mint gold coins, except for the one off 1925 issue) or 1932 (end of gold standard). Others might argue it to be 1662 (the beginning of modern milled coinage and the end of hammered), 1816 (the new milled coins from steam driven presses). 1968 (the first decimal coins) or even 1971 (full scale decimalisation). All those dates come from just one country, and many of you are familiar with all the alternatives from the US that collectors will regard as modern or not. Quite a fluid term me thinks.

Can you post a picture of the note? 15 years hey? It must be a Florence Nightingale note since the Dickens ones weren't introduced until about 1993.